Vladimir Lenin’s

Speech Delivered at the

Third All-Russian Congress of Water Transport Workers

Delivered:March 15, 1920Source:Collected Works, Volume 30, p. 426 - 32First Published:Pravda Nos. 59 and 60, March 17 and 18, 1920Online Version:marx.org in 1996, marxists.org 1999Transcribed:Robert CymbalaHTML Markup:Brian BagginsandDavid Walters

The water transport system
    is at the moment of the  greatest importance and significance to
    Soviet Russia, and the Congress will certainly devote  the most
    serious attention and care to the tasks that confront water
    transport workers. Allow  me to dwell on the question which the
    Communist Party and the trade unions are more  interested in than
    in any other, and which you too no doubt are keenly debating; I
    refer to  the management of industry. This question figures as a
    special point on the agenda of the  Party Congress. Theses on the
    subject are being published. The comrades in the water  transport
    system must also discuss it.

You know that one of the points in dispute, one that arouses
    the liveliest discussion both  in the press and at meetings, is
    that of one-man management or corporate management. I think  that
    the preference for corporate management not infrequently betrays
    an inadequate  comprehension of the tasks confronting the
    Republic; what is more, it often testifies to  insufficient
    class-consciousness. When I reflect on this question, I always
    feel like saying  that the workers have not yet learned enough
    from the bourgeoisie. This is graphically shown  by the countries
    where the democratic socialists, or Social-Democrats, prevail, who
    are now  participating in governments in Europe and America, under
    various guises and in some form of  alliance with the
    bourgeoisie. They have been ordained by God himself to share the
    old  prejudices; but in our country, after two years of
    proletarian rule, we should not only want,  but should strive to
    inculcate upon the proletariat a class-consciousness that does not
    fall  short of that of the bourgeoisie. Look how the bourgeoisie
    administer the state; how they  have organised the bourgeois
    class. In the old days, could you have found anyone who shared
    the views of the bourgeoisie and was their loyal defender, and yet
    argued that individual  authority is incompatible with the
    administration of the state? If there had been such a  blockhead
    among the bourgeoisie he would have been laughed to scorn by his
    own class fellows,  and would not have been allowed to talk or
    hold forth at any important meeting of capitalists  and
    bourgeois. They would have asked him what the question of
    administration through one  person or through a corporate body had
    to do with the question of class.

The shrewdest and richest bourgeoisies are the British and
    American; the British are in  many respects more experienced, and
    they know how to rule better than the Americans. And do  they not
    furnish us with examples of maximum individual dictatorship, of
    maximum speed in  administration, and yet they keep the power
    fully and entirely in the hands of their own  class? There you
    have a lesson, comrades, and I think that if you give it some
    thought, if  you recall the not very distant past, when the
    Ryabushinskys, Morozovs and other capitalists  ruled
    Russia—if you recall how, after the overthrow of the
    autocracy, during the eight  months Kerensky, the Mensheviks and
    the Socialist-Revolutionaries were in power, they managed  so
    perfectly and with such remarkable rapidity to change their hue,
    to assume every kind of  label, to make every kind of outward,
    formal concession, and yet keep the power fully and  completely in
    the hands of their own class—I think that a little
    reflection on the lesson  of Britain and on this concrete example
    will do much more to help understand the matter of  one-man
    management than many abstract, purely theoretical resolutions,
    compiled in  advance.

It is claimed that corporate management means management by the
    workers, and that  individual management means non-worker
    management. The mere fact that the question is  presented in this
    way, the mere fact that this sort of argument is used shows that
    we still  lack a sufficiently clear class-consciousness; and not
    only so, but that we are less clear  about our class interests
    than the bourgeois gentry are. And that is natural. They did not
    learn to rule in two years, but in two hundred years, and much
    more than two hundred years if  you take the European
    bourgeoisie. We must not give way to despair because we have been
    unable to learn everything in two years; but it is
    important—events demand it—that we  should learn more
    rapidly than our enemies have. They have had hundreds of years to
    learn in;  they have opportunities to learn all over again and
    correct their mistakes, because on a  world scale they are
    infinitely stronger than we are. We have no time to learn; we must
    approach the question of corporate management from the standpoint
    of positive and concrete  facts. I am sure you will come to adopt
    the policy on this question outlined by the Central  Committee of
    the Party; it has been published and is being discussed at every
    Party meeting,  but for the men on the job, for the water
    transport workers, who have been at it for two  years the truth of
    this is obvious. And I hope the vast majority of those present
    here, who  are familiar with practical management, will understand
    that we must not confine ourselves to  a general discussion of the
    question, but must act like serious practical men, abolishing the
    collegiums and managing without them.

All administrative work requires special qualifications. You
    may be the very best of  revolutionaries and propagandists, and
    yet be absolutely useless as an administrator. But  anybody who
    studies real life and has practical experience knows that
    management necessarily  implies competency, that a knowledge of
    all the conditions of production down to the last  detail and of
    the latest technology of your branch of production is required;
    you must have  had a certain scientific training. These are the
    conditions we must satisfy at any cost. And  when we move general
    resolutions in which we talk with the pomposity of experts about
    corporate management and one-man management, the conviction
    gradually dawns upon us that we  know practically nothing about
    management, but we are beginning to learn a little from
    experience, to weigh every step and to promote every administrator
    who shows any ability.

You know from the debates in the Central Committee that we are
    not opposed to placing  workers at the head, but we say that this
    question must be settled in the interests of  production. We
    cannot wait. The country is so badly ruined,
    calamities—famine, cold and  general want—have reached
    such a pitch that we cannot continue like this any longer. No
    devotion, no self-sacrifice can save us if we do not keep the
    workers alive, if we do not  provide them with bread, if we do not
    succeed in procuring large quantities of salt, so as to
    recompense the peasants by properly organised exchange and not
    with pieces of coloured paper  which cannot keep us going for
    long. The very existence of the power of the workers and
    peasants, the very existence of Soviet Russia is at stake. With
    management in the hands of  incompetent people, with fuel not
    delivered in time, with locomotives, steamers and barges
 standing unrepaired, the very existence of Soviet Russia is at stake.

Our rail transport system is in a far worse state than our
    water transport system. It has  been ruined by the Civil War,
    which was mainly conducted along the land routes; both sides
    destroyed mostly bridges, and this has put the whole railway
    system in a desperate state of  ruin. We shall restore it. Almost
    daily we are doing a little bit towards restoring it. But  it will
    be some time before the system is completely restored. If even
    advanced and cultured  countries are suffering from disrupted
    transport systems, how are we to restore ours in  Russia? But
    repaired it must be, and quickly, for the population cannot endure
    another winter  like the last. Whatever the heroism of the
    workers, whatever their spirit of self-sacrifice,  they cannot go
    on enduring all the torments of hunger, cold, typhus and so on. So
    tackle the  question of management like practical men. See to it
    that management is conducted with the  minimum expenditure of
    forces; see to it that the administrators, whether experts or
    workers,  are capable men, that they all work and manage, and let
    it be considered a crime for them not  to take part in the work of
    management. Learn from your own practical experience. Learn from
    the bourgeoisie as well. They knew how to maintain their class
    rule; they have the experience  we cannot do without and to ignore
    it would be sheer conceit and entail the utmost danger to
 the revolution.

Earlier revolutions perished because the workers were unable to
    retain power by means of a  firm dictatorship and did not realise
    that they could not retain power by dictatorship, by  force, by
    coercion alone; power can be maintained only by adopting the whole
    experience of  cultured, technically-equipped, progressive
    capitalism and by enlisting the services of all  these
    people. When workers undertaking the job of management for the
    first time adopt an  unfriendly attitude towards the expert, the
    bourgeois, the capitalist who only recently was a  director, who
    raked in millions and oppressed the workers, we say—and no
    doubt the  majority of you also say—that these workers have
    only just begun to move towards  communism. If communism could be
    built with experts who were not imbued with the bourgeois
    outlook, that would be very easy; but such communism is a myth. We
    know that nothing drops  from the skies; we know that communism
    grows out of capitalism and can be built only from its  remnants;
    they are bad remnants, it is true, but there are no
    others. Whoever dreams of a  mythical communism should he driven
    from every business conference, and only those should be  allowed
    to remain who know how to get things done with the remnants of
    capitalism. There are  tremendous difficulties in the work, but it
    is fruitful work, and every expert must be  treasured as being the
    only vehicle of technology and culture, without whom there can be
 nothing, without whom there can be no communism.

Our Red Army was victorious in another sphere because we solved
    this problem in relation  to the Red Army. Thousands of former
    officers, generals, and colonels of the tsarist army  betrayed and
    sold us, and thousands of the finest Red Army men perished as a
    result—that  you know. But tens of thousands are serving us
    although they remain supporters of the  bourgeoisie, and without
    them there would have been no Red Army. And you know that when two
    years ago we tried to create a Red Army without them, it ended in
    guerrilla methods and  disorder; the result was that our ten to
    twelve million soldiers did not make up a single  division. There
    was not a single division fit to fight, and with our millions of
    soldiers we  were unable to cope with the tiny regular army of the
    whiteguards. We learned this lesson at  the cost of much
    bloodshed, and it must now be applied to industry.

Experience tells us that everyone with a knowledge of bourgeois
    culture, bourgeois science  and bourgeois technology must be
    treasured. Without them we shall be unable to build
    communism. The working class, as a class, rules; it created Soviet
    power, holds that power as  a class, and can take every supporter
    of bourgeois interests and fling him out neck and crop.  Therein
    lies the strength of the proletariat. But if we are to build a
    communist society, let  us frankly admit our complete inability to
    conduct affairs, to be organisers and  administrators. We must
    approach the matter with the greatest caution, bearing in mind
    that  only that proletarian is class-conscious who is able to
    prepare the bourgeois expert for the  forthcoming navigation
    season and who does not waste his time and energy, more than
    enough of
 which is always wasted on corporate management.

I repeat, our fate may depend more on the forthcoming
    navigation season than on the  forthcoming war with Poland, if it
    is forced upon us. War too, you know, is hampered by the
    break-down of the transport system. We have plenty of troops, but
    we cannot transport them,  we cannot supply them with food; we
    cannot bring up salt, of which we have large quantities,  and
    without an exchange of goods, proper relations with the peasants
    are inconceivable. That  is why the entire Republic, Soviet power
    as a whole, the very existence of the power of the  workers and
    peasants, imposes on the present navigation season tasks of great
    and exceptional  importance. Not one week, not one day, not one
    minute must be lost; we must put an end to
 this chaos and increase our possibilities three- and fourfold.

Everything, perhaps, depends on fuel, but the fuel situation is
    now better than it was  last year. We can float more timber, if we
    do not allow mismanagement. Things are much better  with regard to
    oil, to say nothing of the fact that in the near future Grozny
    will most  likely be in our hands; and although this is still
    problematical, the Emba fields are ours,
 and there we have ten to fourteen million poods of oil already. And if the water transport  system helps us to deliver large quantities of building material to Saratov quickly and in  good time, we shall cope with the railway to the Emba fields. And you know what it means to  have oil for the water transport system. We shall not be able to get the railways going in a  short time. God grant—not God, of course, but our ability to overcome the old prejudices  of the workers—that we improve the railways a little in four or five months. And so, the  water transport system must carry out a task of heroic proportions during this year’s
 navigation period.

Dash, ardour and enthusiasm alone can do nothing; organisation,
    endurance and honest  effort are what will help, when the loudest
    voice is not that of the man who fears the  bourgeois expert and
    treats us to general talk but that of the man who is able to
    establish  and to exercise firm authority—let it be even
    individual authority provided it is used in  the interests of the
    proletariat—and who realises that everything depends on the
    water  transport system.

To make progress we must erect a ladder; in order to get the
    sceptical to climb that  ladder, we must put things in order, we
    must select and promote people who are able to put  the water
    transport system in order. There are some who say in reference to
    military  discipline: “The idea! What do we want it
    for?” Such people do not realise the situation in  Russia
    and do not realise that although the fight on the bloody front is
    coming to an end,  the fight on the bloodless front is only
    beginning, that no less effort, exertion and  sacrifice is
    required here, and that the stakes are no smaller and the
    resistance greater rather than less. Every wealthy peasant, every
    kulak and every member of the old administration who does not want
    to act in the interests of the workers is our enemy. Do not
    cherish any illusions. Victory demands a tremendous struggle and
    iron, military discipline. Whoever does not understand this
    understands nothing about the conditions needed to maintain the
    power of the workers, and his ideas do great harm to this power of
    the workers and peasants.

That is why, comrades, I will conclude my speech by expressing
      the hope and certainty that you will devote the greatest attention
      to the tasks of the forthcoming navigation season, and will make
      it your aim, and will stop at no sacrifice, to create real, iron,
      military discipline and to perform in the sphere of water
      transport miracles as great as those performed during the past two
      years by our Red Army.
      (Applause)